Peeing On A Rock

Mrs. Fat Man and I took two of our daughters to McDonalds for an ice cream cone this evening. Then we drove over to a small lake by our house so we could watch the people there fish and wind surf and all the other things people do at the lake. After we got parked, we noticed a little kid walk over and check out the big rocks that border the parking lot. He was a blonde headed little bugger, had his swim trunks on with no shirt, he was about four years old. He picked out one of the bigger rocks, dropped his shorts and proceeded to take a pee on the side of it. He had a very impressive bladder capacity, because he soaked it down pretty good. After he was done, he pulled his shorts up and went to get his Dad. He brought his Dad over and did the same palm up presentation wave that the models on the Price is Right do. It got me to thinking about how each of us long for the approval of our Dad’s. Over my years of working in an emergency room I have seen the consequences of not receiving that approval. I have seen everything from an anxiety riddled 70 year old who cried like a baby because he could never please his father, to babies a few months old with failure to thrive because they receive no affection from their parents. The statistics on fatherlessness are stark to say the least. My own grown children have not stopped seeking my approval, as a matter of fact, I think it might be more important to them than ever. None of this is a secret, anyone who had a man who fathered them, which is everybody, understands the importance of fatherly approval/blessing and the profundity of the lack of it. The thing I fail to understand is how parents (primarily fathers) can abandon their children so readily. I am not just talking about fathers that leave their families. I am also talking about the functionally fatherless. Those fathers who are present in body, but do not interact with their families. And then there are parents who are around, but do not provide financially for their kids, but that is a whole different ramble. Below are some statistics from the website fatherhoodfactor.com. They are profound! By the way, the little blonde haired rock pee-ers Dad was real proud of him, and I was real proud of his Dad.

U.S. Fatherless Statistics

Fatherless Stats

1. 43% of US children live without their father [US Department of Census]

2. 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. [US D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census]

10. 70% of juveniles in state operated institutions have no father. [US Department of Justice, Special Report, Sept. 1988]

11. 85% of youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections, 1992]

12. Fatherless boys and girls are: twice as likely to drop out of high school; twice as likely to end up in jail; four times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. [US D.H.H.S. news release, March 26, 1999]